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Jays prospect Aaron Sanchez delivers mixed bag in Buffalo: Griffin

BUFFALO—Discussion among Blue Jays’ critics forever concerns the agonizingly slow pace of their player development. Some would call it babying by the organization of guys like prized right-hander Aaron Sanchez and other top pitching prospects. Selected in 2010 out of a California high school, Sanchez was making just his second Triple-A start on Friday in his fifth pro season. But people tend to forget, when labelling him a bust, that he’s 21, turning 22 on Canada Day.

It was the much anticipated home debut for the highly-touted Blue Jays right-hander at Coca-Cola Field with a Fireworks Day crowd announced at 10,808. He had been promoted from Double-A New Hampshire a week before, making his debut on the road in Toledo — allowing five runs in four innings on 86 pitches. It was a debut that was tough to judge because of the hectic nature of Sanchez’s travel and preparation leading up to the loss to the Mud Hens. This time there could be no excuses.

The Jays’ No. 1 prospect in 2014, according to Baseball America, had been pushed back after originally being scheduled for the finale of the just completed trip in Columbus. But there was the issue of a suspended game on Thursday to finish up before the regularly scheduled affair, and the Jays’ bosses wanted him to have a chance to start in a controlled environment to give him every opportunity to succeed — or fail.

He was replacing Liam Hendriks, who started for the Jays in Cincinnati Friday night.

The final Sanchez results against Rochester demonstrated a mixed bag of both developmental highs and lows. The six-foot-four, 200-pound prospect allowed three runs in five innings on 83 pitches, with four walks and four strikeouts, and his fastball command was still sketchy. He tended to pull the fastball down and away to right-handers and left too many curveballs up in the strike zone.

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On the other hand, after giving up a two-run bomb to Chris Colabello in the second inning, he came back the next time and struck him out on a diet of curveballs and changeups, then escaped the inning with a double-play groundout. Sanchez fell behind Wilkin Ramirez 3-and-0, then came back to fan him on three 94-95 m.p.h. fastballs. He’s still got work to do, but it was better.

“The stuff is there,” Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos said after the outing. “He induced eight groundball outs, one flyball out and that’s going to get him out of trouble — when he doesn’t walk guys. But overall, the velocity — he flashed some really good curveballs, and for a 21-year-old kid this is a good experience for him. It’s a step in the right direction, and especially it’s an improvement over the last start. He’s had his share of failure over time. He’s had bad starts in New Hampshire. He’s been through this before where he’s had a bad outing and been able to bounce back. That’s all part of it.”

Meanwhile, Bisons pitching coach Randy St. Claire, a former Blue Jays and Expos reliever, suggested that the Sanchez he saw in Toledo was the same pitcher everyone had been so impressed with at spring training, perhaps with a little less command. St. Claire emphasized, however, that it may have had a lot to do with the helter-skelter atmosphere surrounding his odyssey from New England.

St. Claire offered interesting insight into the repeating dilemma of young prospects like Sanchez who forever seem to be competing in leagues filled with more senior players.

St. Claire pinpointed a moment in time this spring and gives credit to the youngster’s impressive outing against manager Greg Hamilton’s Canadian junior national team in its annual spring game vs. the Jays. This year, the game was played on March 11 in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Sanchez was impressive. According to St. Claire, he took that momentum and never looked back.

“At first I thought he (had) a little bit of the deer-in-the-headlight look,” St. Claire said his first impression of the young righty. “Then he pitched against the Canadian team. It was a different guy.

“The Canadian team was young, a bunch of young kids — not a whole lot younger than him, but a couple of years younger — and I saw a look (from Sanchez) like, ‘I’m the man out here.’ From that game on, he went (forward) and he had a heck of a spring. I think that opened everybody’s eyes.

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“For me, it was kind of like a turning point of spring training that I saw from him, and the way he handled himself and the confidence that came out of it after that.”

Anthopoulos, who attended the Bisons game with assistants Andrew Tinnish and Dana Brown, wouldn’t put any timetable on Sanchez’s stint at Triple-A, though the Jays clearly have needs.

“If he’s dominant, like anyone, if he’s doing that well, he would get an opportunity. But no, we wouldn’t just do it,” Anthopoulos said. “You want to bring someone up who is having some success that you feel is going to help the team. Ultimately it’s about winning games up there. You’re not doing things from a developmental standpoint. Right now, he’s not in the conversation.”

By the trade deadline at the end of July, a healthy Sanchez will have had seven more Triple-A starts and then we’ll see.

If he’s not in the Jays’ conversation, will he be in the Cubs’, the Rays’ or others?

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